Tag Archives: NextGen

The Intelligent Community

31 May

The Intelligent Community

Kate Raworth, the ‘renegade’ economist and author of Doughnut Economics, knows only too well that ideas are born when and where they are needed most.  Fresh thinking takes time to be accepted.  Darwin’s evolutionary insights are still resisted.  Climate Change science still denied.  Flat Earth advocates still cling to the edges of their world.

It is not enough to gather evidence.  Mass acceptance of fresh thinking oft requires a crisis of sufficient scale to overcome complacency.   Sufficient scale?  Massive impacts for a few may be discounted by those looking at bigger pictures.  Responses reflect agency – the ability to make that difference.  And therein lies the power of localism – the strength of the place, the community, the neighbourhood. That ability to JFDI.

The emergence of Intelligent Communities – places that are not resigned to some externally-imposed fate – reflects locally perceived priorities.  These are communities that really do ‘know their place’ and know it in colours, details, depths of complexity – ‘nuanced knowhow’ that often eludes the averaged ‘higher’ authority.

BUT (and that’s a big but) the vital essence of such communities is difficult to measure and analyse. Qualitative research methods do not easily answer the question:  Why do some places succeed whilst others decline? We can, however, spot the signs – the indicators of prosperity, confidence, wellbeing and community spirit. That is why, over two decades of research, the Intelligent Community Forum has assessed hundreds of places and selected a few as exemplars – communities that may serve as beacons for others.

Every year ICF has brought these communities together to share their learning.   Until now that global gathering has always been held in North America.  2018 is different.  For three days of next week the ICF Global Summit will be held in London.  In preparation for that event (and for the benefit of those new to the notion of Intelligent Communities) we started publishing a weekly series of notes covering several of the primary indicators – the signs of local activity that ICF’s researchers have, over the years, seen time and again in the most successful places.

The series was first announced in a brief note ‘Looking Sideways at that Place We call Home’,and closely followed by ‘Local Fabrics?’ to set a framework for the rest of the series.  Subsequent episodes were:

All of these themes and their local action programmes (calibrated to match local economic and social priorities) are common indicators of Intelligent Communities.

Next week, ICF’s Top7 communities from around the world, together with an array of top flight speakers, will share their experiences with delegates from near and far.

The full 3-day programme includes details of evening receptions and, on June 6th, at the Summit Dinner, Melbourne Australia will hand over the accolade of Intelligent Community of the Year to one of ICF’s 2018 Top7 Communities.

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Where are we heading with this?

28 Apr

There’s a moment on any epic journey – a brief moment, maybe of self-doubt – when you pause (mid-sentence, perhaps) to wonder exactly where you’re headed.

This week’s pause, this check, comes just as we approach the midpoint of the KYP series – four done, five to go.  Time, then, to check the plan, time to summon energy, time to pull together and push on.  Time, maybe, for a small course correction?

KYP – ‘Knowing Your Place’ – was always an unlikely blog series but from the outset it had great structural underpinning.  Most of the episodes had been well rehearsed – albeit with different headlines – and needed only an injection of current relevance for a new audience.

With just one exception the planned topics were neatly summarised three years previously in the concluding chapter of Brain Gain – a book that captured more than a decade of learning through the Intelligent Community Forum.

The single exception is a key indicator that has since crept far more clearly onto the community agenda – largely, it should be said, through the work of the Rockefeller Foundation and their 100 Resilient Cities network.  It might once have been argued that Resilience was but a subset of a longer-standing ICF Key Indicator – Sustainability.  However, headline tones get burdened by baggage – a peaceful green is not on the same wavelength as urgently-flashing red and blue lights of public safety.

When the Intelligent Community Forum gathers in London next June, their 2018 root theme, Humanising Data, will no doubt be coloured by recently raised awareness of data privacy issues and the impacts/consequences of ‘artificial intelligence/ignorance’ – but in our KYP series the blog-prep for Sir Nigel Shadbolt’s input is still two weeks away.

For readers remaining mystified, links to the series so far are listed below.  At the outset, the central question, the question that is bringing so many brilliant speakers and community leaders together next June, was deceptively simple: Why do some places thrive whilst others decline?

I’ve checked the waypoints.  We seem to be on course, but the next five weeks is a long journey.  Still to come in this series are thoughts on local Advocacy (Who do we think are?), Open Data (AI in city infrastructures), Innovation Capacity (Pacemakers for Place-makers), Sustainability Engagement and finally Resilience.  Fortunately, ICF is inherently collaborative and, with inputs from summit speakers, the driving can be shared.

By the end of May, homework complete, all delegates – whether from the UK or the other side of world – will be fully prepped and prompted to probe the great gathering of expert speakers and community leaders at the ICF Global Forum.

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Notes:

Brain Gain, Bell, Jung and Zacharilla, Intelligent Community Forum, ISBN: 1499228023

Knowing Your Place – that place you call home.

The series so far:

1  Local Fabrics?

2  Connected With Success?

3  Where Have All Our Flowers Gone?

4  Altogether Now?

Part 5 – ‘Who Do We Think We Are?’ is scheduled for publication on 2ndMay.

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Knowing Your Place – that place we call home

4 Apr

From tomorrow (April 5th) and for the following eight weeks we’ll be publishing a series of reflections on aspects of Intelligent Communities.

These will also appear on the Medium platform (Groupe Intellex) and on LinkedIn.

Full announcement sets the context for the series in the run-up to the Intelligent Community Forum’s Global Summit in London (June 4-6)

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On the move – fresh impetus for local leadership

30 Nov

Sometimes repetition works. It’s brilliant for children’s stories.

Sometimes – particularly in politics – reinforcement is needed for messages to penetrate.

Sometimes audience boredom blunts the impact.

But then, amazingly, the message arrives on a different train – a fresh perspective – and the audience is shaken from slumber.

That is why this Social Mobility report is required reading.

I have lost track of the number of times I’ve written of the UK’s economic diversity and the inadequacy of over-centralised policy responses.  Despite the daily evidence the march of the macros remains the average response.

Teasing apart the policy knots (treating causes rather than symptoms) does not come easily to the average big number addict.

At the heart of the Social Mobility Commission’s report the challenge of reconciling the National with the Local is exposed. Umpteen flavours of economic and demographic analysis may have said all this before but now . . .

‘There is enough evidence from around the world, in our country’s own history and, contemporaneously, in local areas to know that, with the right approach, the transmission of disadvantage from one generation to the next can be broken.

‘There is, however, a mind-blowing inconsistency of practice. It is the breeding ground for the local lottery in life chances that exists today. It is, of course, a matter for local decision-makers to attune their policies and priorities to the needs of their local communities. In a heavily resource-constrained climate, local councils are continually having to make difficult choices about where to allocate resources and focus efforts in order to get the biggest bang for their buck. But all too often schemes start up and then wither away. Initiatives often lack scale. Experience is usually not pooled. Most worryingly of all, evidence about what works to improve social mobility is, at best, not properly embedded in local policies and programmes. At worst, it is ignored. When that happens, precious public resources are wasted and the potential for social progress is lost.’

Despite the pleas for consistency – the outrage against ‘postcode lotteries’ – there is also recognition of the need for local leaders ‘to attune their policies and priorities to the needs of their local communities’. That required flexibility is certainly not lost on the recently appointed Metro Mayors and has been a consistent refrain from many city leaders. But after years of denigration (and austerity budgets) Local Governments have lost much of their authority. It’s a rare and brave soul who has leadership strength to develop local economic and community development policies that really meet the needs of their people.

And yet, despite constraints (real or imagined), it does happen. The report cites evidence of places where fortune has changed through dint of local effort. But the report also highlights how those flashes of brilliance are rarely shared.

Perhaps more than the myriad metrics around economic performance and evolving demographics, this Social Mobility study underscores that need for local collaboration and inspired leadership.

This is precisely the agenda planned for a unique 3-day conference in June 2018.

‘Intelligent Communities’ are places that may have the benefit of smart technology and future-proofed infrastructure, but they also prosper under the guidance of gifted local leadership.

This is not new – they’ve been studied in depth by the Intelligent Community Forum for the best part of two decades.

Next June such places from around the world will send their delegates to meet and mingle with local leaders from the UK, share their ideas and successes, form new bonds, learn of new opportunities and celebrate their delight in a renaissance of the places they call ‘home’.

 

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And The NextGen Digital Challenge 2017 Winners Are . . .

23 Oct

 

And the Winners are . . .

[Westminster, 23rd October 2017]

Announcing the results of the UK’s 7th annual NextGen Digital Challenge Awards, Iain Stewart MP (Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smart Cities) congratulated the finalists for this 7th year of the NextGen Digital Challenge.  In his address at the Awards dinner in Westminster, Ian Stewart summarised the progress being made in Parliament on the policy framework for a range of ‘smart’ initiatives including the advent of driverless vehicles.

Following Iain Stewart’s address, Richard Hooper (Chair, Broadband Stakeholders Group) and Derek Wyatt (Chair, Foundation for Information Society Policy) presented trophies to the winners across seven categories of digital endeavour.

The NextGen Digital Challenge Awards programme celebrates great projects. Every year the awards are adapted to reflect current trends and priorities in digital application.

Whether in Public Service Transformation, development of Digital Skills or new initiatives in Place-Making, these projects illustrate the wealth of creativity and innovation evident throughout the UK economy.

More than a focus on individual leaders, most inspiring developments are the work of collaborative teams who strive to ‘do things differently and do different things’ — innovating to overcome the inertia of established custom and practice.

The Awards Dinner in Westminster also heard former MP Derek Wyatt describe the plans for the 2018 ICF Global Summit in London next June. This 3-day event will bring civic and industry leaders from around the world to celebrate the development of Intelligent Communities.

Digital Challenge Awards Co-Founder, David Brunnen, also thanked the 2017 Judging Panel for their great work in assessing more than 30 shortlisted finalists each with their diverse Challenges, Solutions and Achievements.

2017 WINNERS

Public Service Transformation Award

Winner: NHS Education for Scotland @NHS_Education

2nd Place: Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment @CCEA_info

Digital Skills Award

Winner: Armagh Banbridge Craigavon Borough Council @abcb_council

Joint 2nd Place: Arch Commercial Enterprises Ltd and Young Enterprise East Belfast @YE_NI

Innovative Projects Award

Winner: People Plus with Mendix @peopleplusuk @Mendix

2nd Place: CAST Fuse Digital Accelerator @TechforgoodCAST

Place-Making Award

Winner: Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN) @dig2agig #yorkshiredales

2nd Place: Good Things Foundation @goodthingsfdn

Digital Health Award

Winner: Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) @DVLAgovuk

Joint 2nd Place: AHP Suffolk @AHPSuffolk and NHS Education for Scotland @NHS_Education

Networking Innovations Award

Winner: HATDeX — The Hub of all Things @TheHATDex

2nd Place: JT (Jersey Telecom) @JTsocial

Connected Britain Award

Winner: Diva Telecom @DivaTelecom

2nd Place: Tiree Community Development Trust @HIEScotland

[THIS RELEASE WAS UPDATED 25/10/2017]

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Notes for editors:

Further information and photographs available via davidb@nextgenevents.co.uk — +44 (0)7714 325 657

About NextGen

NextGen (NG Events Ltd) has supported digital innovation and sustainability projects for over a decade with a series of conferences, workshops and exhibitions to give voice to innovators, new network designers, applications developers and community builders. http://www.nextgenevents.co.uk/awards

About ICF

The Intelligent Community Forum is a US-based Research Think Tank with an international network of 159 cities and communities. Their research has tracked the evolution of inspired local leadership and the economic and societal impacts that flow from investments in digital infrastructures and their application to community needs. http://www.intelligentcommunity.org 

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Challenges, Solutions, Achievements – and Trophies for projects that must be celebrated

15 Oct

 

Seven years ago the NextGen Digital Challenge Awards programme was designed to highlight the need for much stronger investment in digital access infrastructures.

The awards were very different from the usual run of industry accolades for people and products.

It took a while but eventually contenders understood that the winners produced brilliant and succinct project case-studies explaining their challenges, solutions and achievements.

Seven years on the rules remain but the field has evolved.  Every year the awards categories have changed to include new frontiers.

From the early, narrow, focus on Urban and Rural broadband deployments, the glittering trophies now also recognise innovative endeavours in the use of these utiities. That doesn’t mean any let-up in the push for better digital infrastructures but it does provide great inspiration for project teams grappling with the challenges of making all this connectivity stuff really useful.

We started again this year with the Open Call – to see what sorts of projects would be nominated. Only then were the contenders sorted, shortlisted and invited to submit their project stories for the 2017 selection of awards.

This process keeps the programme relevant – and, whilst some themes continue, others come into focus. Projects that might once have fitted a general ‘Digital Inclusion’ category may now find they are contenders for the Digital Skills Award.

Right now the Finalists for each of seven trophies are just one week away from hearing if their projects have convinced our independent judging panel. The 2017 awards will be presented at a dinner in Westminster on October 23rd.

  • Why, you may ask, is the Driver & Vehicle Licence Authority (DVLA) competing against an NHS contender for the Digital Health Award?
  • What sort of project, nominated by the Yorkshire Dales National Park, is competing against a Liverpool local currency for (new this year) the Place-Making honours?
  • How come a small village not far from Leeds is battling with the big beasts of broadband for the Connected Britain Award?

What is certain is the Digital Challenge Awards programme has once again served up a rich selection of project examples that will inspire and inform – not least because many of these stories will be used in schools, colleges and universities to stretch young imaginations.

The presentation dinner will not only bring these UK project champions together but will also raise the curtain on an even bigger gathering next year when mayors, CIOs and community leaders from around the world assemble in London for a three-day focus on the making (and sustaining) of Intelligent Communities – the purposeful outcomes enabled by ‘smart’ technologies.

Judging by this year’s crop of project endeavours, we will have many great examples to share with high-powered visiting delegations to the Intelligent Community Forum’s 18th Global Summit. And it’ll be the Finalists in the 2017 NextGen Digital Challenge Awards who will be able to say ‘We heard it here, first, on this channel’!

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Notes:

The 2017 NextGen Digital Challenge Awards dinner will be held at 1 Great George Street, Westminster, starting at 19:00. Former MP Derek Wyatt will introduce plans for the June 2018 events. The after-dinner speaker is Iain Stewart MP – Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smart Cities.

The seven 2017 Awards Categories are for exemplars in: Public Service Transformation, Digital Health, Digital Skills, Place-Making, Innovative Projects, Connected Britain and Networking Innovations. The brilliant hand-crafted glass trophies are the work of artist Helen Thomson (Fantasia Glass).

Dinner capacity is limited but requests for any late availability places should be routed to mailto:awards@nextgenevents.co.uk before 20th October.

For earlier commentary on the 2017 Awards Categories see: https://groupeintellex.com/2017/05/30/the-real-digital-trends-revealed-in-the-2017-digital-challenge-awards-programme/

 

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The real digital trends revealed in the 2017 Digital Challenge awards programme.

30 May

Media headlines continually claim great innovative progress – new systems, new Apps and better services.   But, what are the real changes in the UK’s digital landscape?

Hardly a day passes without a flurry of press releases, product announcements, reports and white papers. The spinning rarely ceases even if some digital ideas fly off at a tangent never to return. The realities – the changes that really do impact on the way we work and live – dawn much later.

Long after headline writers have gone hunting elsewhere, some of this stuff is given purpose and made tangible by folks with real challenges to resolve. We all depend on small armies of project teams to work out how to usefully apply new systems and capabilities.  They may not attract headlines but they represent the bedrock of reality. These project teams are true heroes and their work deserves to be honoured.

That is why the annual NextGen Digital Challenge Awards programme is designed to celebrate their digital endeavours. It is also why these awards change shape every year to reflect the real digital trends.  Now in it’s 7th year, the Digital Challenge has once again adapted the awards to reflect the results of this year’s Open Call for nominations.

Seven Key Transformational Trends

These are the seven awards categories selected for the 2017 NextGen Digital Challenge.

 

 

Connectivity no longer distance-dependent

Some of our Award Categories have been consistent over many years. Digital connectivity projects are fundamental and the trophy this year will be called the Connected Britain Award.   This year, however, no distinctions need be made between rural and urban connectivity projects.  Older distant-dependent designs are no match for ‘Full Fibre’ and fast wireless technologies – often deployed in combination. Cities that once thought they were in the forefront will now need to catch up.

Digital Skills for everyone

For a few years now we’ve honoured Digital Inclusion projects but that, often-traumatic, struggle to get folk online (classically featured in Mike Leigh’s ‘I Daniel Blake’) is now a subset of a far greater challenge – the need for a much wider range of digital skills education to reach across all age groups and all economic sectors. The 2017 Digital Skills Award will celebrate imaginative projects from across the UK.

Networked Innovations – creativity below the radar

Improving the utility of fixed and mobile access to the Internet are background projects. They not only make services more useful and safe but can also cut the cost of network deployment. The shortlisted finalists for the 2017 Networking Innovations Award will severely challenge our judging panel as they reflect on the challenges and achievements.

Digital Health comes home from hospital

This Award Category first came to prominence last year and the current project nominations are further evidence of massive activity in the health sector – and, this year, not entirely dominated by the NHS. The 2017 Digital Health Award will reflect significant shifts in the way the nation’s health issues are being tackled.

Public Services transformed

In contrast to popular myth (and tabloid headlines) it is in the public sector that great transformational projects are powering progress – not just boosting value for money but enhancing service quality. There can be only one winner of the 2017 Public Service Transformation Award but all of the Finalists’ case studies will be an inspiration to others.

Place-Making with lateral thinking

2017 marks the first appearance of an award that recognises the real benefit of digital investments. When project teams pitch for funding they make judgments about investor attitudes and that can lead to over-emphasis on secondary and tertiary benefits. But no longer. The 2017 Place-Making Award is unashamedly focused on the wellbeing of communities – their economic and social development.

Innovative Applications – whatever next

The imagination of creative digital developers opens up new opportunities and a new wealth of insights into how to put digital expertise to good purpose. The Innovative Projects Award will celebrate those endeavors and honour their achievements.

The Shortlisted Finalists for each of these awards will be announced on June 14th at the Connected Britain conference in London.

Each team will be asked to submit their full project descriptions to an independent judging panel in August.

The NextGen Digital Challenge Awards Dinner and Presentation will be held in October.

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Transformative Projects do not ‘just happen’

1 Mar

Truly transformative projects are rarely (if ever) the work of a lone genius. And Digital Transformation is not weasel wording for yet more budget cuts.

The projects that really make a difference result from great collaborative effort and diverse inputs – but they do not start from a focus on saving money. Truly transformative projects are driven by a lust to make things work better together.

That is why the UK’s Digital Challenge Awards programme honours projects more than products.  We celebrate team effort more than individual leadership.  We seek out the examples of great endeavour that really do change the way we work and live. And we look out for projects that do far more than just replicate what others have already explored.

In this graphic you can see the lateral thrfabric-6eads that excite our judging panel.

They are not so much concerned with the arena for those endeavours. The judges are far more interested in how and why digital expertise and fresh thinking is applied.

Your work may typically be described as being in Health, or Retail, or Manufacturing or any other economic sector.  But the themes that knit them all together are those that cut across those ‘vertical’ silos.

Your local community may be dominated by just a few industries or embrace many. Your business may specialise in one sector but demand many diverse areas of expertise. Across any area of commercial or social development and public administration, the impact of changes enabled by digital technologies will reflect the effort invested in their application.

Right now the 2017 Open Call is registering nominations for review. Come the end of April we will analyse the class of 2017 – the projects that folks have said – ‘Wow – look at this’.

By mid-June we’ll be ready to declare this year’s shortlist. Then we’ll ask each of those ‘Finalists’ to submit a project summary – just 3 sections describing Their Challenge, their Solution and Their Achievement.

Those projects will be assessed by our independent judging panel. We’ll see the winners at a celebratory and prestigious Awards Dinner in October. But that will not be the end of the story. The Finalist’s case studies will become teaching materials for young graduates who are exploring future opportunities across the fabric of our economy.

Your project may have been transformative but it could also inform and transform the next generation.

If you spot a project that deserves recognition – don’t hesitate to nominate it for the 2017 NextGen Digital Challenge Awards programme.

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The NextGen Digital Challenge Awards programme (now in its 7th year) is free to enter.  It is a joint production from Groupe Intellex and NextGen Events

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2017 Digital Challenge Awards – Open Call announced

24 Jan

NextGen logo smallThe Open Call for Nominations for the 7th annual NextGen Digital Challenge Awards has now been launched.  The Awards celebrate great endeavour across many fields of digital transformation.

Over the past six years the programme has tracked many of the brightest and best digital projects – from rural broadband designs to innovations in Data Privacy, from fresh approaches to health services delivery to remarkable Open Data applications to boost transport networks efficiency.

Last year’s crop included drones for assessing flood risks, new SDN services for corporate networks and a cooperative approach to creating Digital Exchanges.  Winners included The British Red Cross (a mobile app for emergency responses) and Digital Forensic Archeology – bringing Virtual Reality to inform complex court cases.

The entry form suggests some obvious categories for your project nominations but the programme is very open to fresh fields of digital endeavour. Nominate or recommend a project now and maybe your team could be celebrating your success at our prestigious awards event next October.

Full Details

 

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Digital Challenge Awards – 2016 results

14 Oct

westminsterThe highpoint of the UK’s Digital Challenge Awards programme was a dinner and presentation at the House of Lords yesterday evening hosted by Lord Erroll. ( digital-challenge-awards-2016-results-announced-13-oct-final )

The 6th (2016) edition of this competition was launched last January with an Open Call for Nominations.   The Digital Challenge Awards programme has no predetermined Awards Categories – it is only when the Open Call closes that organisers can see the latest digital application trends and then sift through the nominations.  This process keeps the competition fresh and resulted in awards this year for projects in emergent categories such as Digital Healthcare and Local Economic Development.

Unlike many other Awards programmes the Digital Challenge has a strong project focus – and the teams who delivered the work were well represented at the presentation event.   Despite being from very different fields and at varying stages in their digital transformation journeys, what they all have in common are the great challenges of identifying real needs, seeking out innovative solutions and then evaluating their impacts.  And by summarising their endeavours in submissions to the judging panel they all make huge contributions to a wealth of case study material to inspire others.

The 2016 Digital Challenge was supported by O2 Telefonica UK.  Further details will be posted shortly at http://www.nextgenevents.co.uk/awards

 

 

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